Spin Cycle is Escape Collective’s news digest, published every Monday and Friday. You can read it on this website (obviously) or have it delivered straight to your inbox.
Spin Cycle
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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
We did it! The end of January. The longest month on the calendar. But there was enough to keep us occupied, just about, and we’re ending it with a bang too.
Remco Evenepoel was robbed by his postman, Alexandre Vinokourov has finally completely detached from reality, Tadej Pogačar is looking a little different these days, and Tom Pidcock has won his first race for Q36.5 in Saudi Arabia! AlUla baby!
Remco robbery 👮♂️
Remco Evenepoel responded very graciously after he got doored by a Belgian postal service worker back in December, leading to multiple broken bones and a delay in readying himself for the 2025 season.
However, after it emerged a separate postie had stolen €9,000 off of him, he may understandably be less forgiving this time around.
Turns out, a Belgian postman with a gambling addiction was opening people’s credit cards and using them before eventually delivering them to their owners, just with a big chunk of cash missing. One victim notified the authorities and a house search unveiled a number of other stolen cards, including a business account addressed to Evenepoel.
The postie has been in court this week with the public prosecutor’s office demanding an 18-month prison sentence, a majority of which will be suspended. For those following along at home, the Bpost stock price is up more than 3% this week, so I’m yet to be convinced all of this isn’t some sort of insider trading.
A long wait ⏱️
You probably don’t remember the Danish national time trial championship of June last year, but Johan Price-Pejtersen beat Mattias Skjelmose by just one second, before Price-Pejtersen was disqualified after it emerged he rode on a bike path, cutting off maybe a fraction of a second of the course, which is against the rules.
At the time, Skjelmose gave the medal and jersey awarded to him to Price-Pejtersen, disagreeing with the decision of the jury. Having lodged an appeal and waiting a long seven months, the federation has finally made its decision and reversed their call, re-awarding Price-Pejtersen with the title. So, Price-Pejtersen will now be able to wear his national champion’s jersey for his new employer Alpecin-Deceuninck in the coming months. We’d love to know why it took so long to deliberate on this matter. The world is a crazy place.
Feed Zone 🥖
😮💨 Don’t worry, despite becoming the Spanish national coach, Alejandro Valverde has confirmed he will remain an ambassador for Movistar and compete in gravel races for the team.
🇸🇦 The second stage of the AlUla Tour was shortened and neutralised just before the final due to dangerous asphalt on one of the descents. On stage three, Nils Eekhoff (Picnic PostNL) fractured his jaw and broke a tooth after crashing into a lamppost in the final kilometre.
🇳🇴 Uno-X’s Søren Wærenskjold decided to skip the AlUla Tour this year for “moral and ethical” reasons. “I know that in my home country Norway there is not much appreciation for the activities of the emirs. That obviously played a role in my decision not to participate,” he told TV2. “I want to make the right choice morally and ethically, and not put my salary above everything else. I have expressed this to the team and they respect my position, even though they determine the course. But I want to try to be on the ‘right’ side, so to speak. It’s about human rights. There’s evidence of people being imprisoned or even killed because of their political views. Then you have the rights of homosexuals, women … There are a lot of problems.”
🙏 After the kerfuffle that Dutch races would be unable to have a police escort due to the NATO summit being held in the country in June (and no police escort means no race), a compromise has been reached whereby four major races including the Amstel Gold Race for men and women will have police escorts after all.
💸 We’re still trying to get over the shit show of Warner Bros. Discovery upping the price of watching cycling to £372 a year. Read our story here.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday February 1st
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Women (Friday night for USA)
(23:00-01:00 ET/04:00-06:00 GMT/15:00-17:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺7Plus
AlUla Tour, Stage 5
(06:45-08:45 ET/11:45-13:45 GMT/22:45-00:45 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺SBS
Challenge Mallorca, Andratx-Pollença – Men
(08:30-10:30 ET/13:30-15:30 GMT/00:30-02:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Cyclocross
UCI Cyclocross World Championships – Junior Women
(05:00-06:05 ET/10:00-11:05 GMT/21:00-22:05 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
UCI Cyclocross World Championships – U23 Men
(07:00-08:15 ET/12:00-13:15 GMT/23:00-00:15 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
UCI Cyclocross World Championships – Elite Women
(08:45-10:20 ET/13:45-15:20 GMT/00:45-02:20 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
Sunday February 2nd
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Women (Saturday night for USA)
(21:30-00:00 ET/02:30-05:00 GMT/13:30-16:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺7Plus
Challenge Mallorca, Trofeo Palma – Men
(08:30-10:30 ET/13:30-15:30 GMT/00:30-02:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Grand Prix La Marseillaise
(09:15-11:15 ET/14:15-16:15 GMT/23:15-01:15 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
Cyclocross
UCI Cyclocross World Championships – Junior Men
(05:00-06:05 ET/10:00-11:05 GMT/21:00-22:05 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
UCI Cyclocross World Championships – U23 Women
(07:00-08:10 ET/12:00-13:10 GMT/23:00-00:10 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
UCI Cyclocross World Championships – Elite Men
(08:45-10:35 ET/13:45-15:35 GMT/00:45-02:35 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes
Monday February 3rd
No live racing …
🤔 ‘Vino was right, Vino is always right’ quote of the week 🤔
Despite the almost inevitable relegation of his XDS-Astana squad, Alexandre Vinokourov has decided to detach from reality and, maybe at least for morale’s sake, pretend that survival is possible.
“If I didn’t believe in it, if the riders didn’t believe in it, there would be no point in starting the season,” Vinokourov told l’Equipe this week.
Luckily, according to Vino himself, his team’s current predicament isn’t his fault.
“The team was badly managed,” he explained, “not by my staff, but by the shareholders who didn’t know much about this sport. Unfortunately, we fell because of internal tensions that we could have avoided if they had followed my vision and experience. But instead, they tried to force me out.”
Vinokourov is referring to the putsch which saw him ousted in June 2021 before he was reinstated at the helm of the team two months later in August, all of which occurred well before the current 2023-2025 relegation and promotion period.
Or, if he’s referring to the knock-on effect that time has had on the squad since, there are things he could have done differently to accrue UCI points, such as not sign Mark Cavendish and build out the first fully-fledged sprint train in Astana history for the reward of one (admittedly history-making) Tour de France stage. Just a thought.
And finally …
Sent in by various people this week, here’s some primo AI slop to send you off into the weekend with an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“From my neighborhood dive bar/laundromat/pinball bar in Indianapolis, Indiana,” writes Justin Floyd, attaching today’s featured laundry photo. “This place is such a vibe! It’s got lava lamps, Pacman tables, pinball, laundry, cheap beers (PBR, old style, Hamm’s) as well as microbrews from in house. Indianapolis is not exactly what I would consider cool, but at least I have this place down the street!”
As always, we are accepting your laundry photos (especially ones with the doors open so we can Photoshop riders inside the drum) to star in Spin Cycle. Either send them via the Discord or shoot me an email: jonny.long@escapecollective.com
Until next time …
That’s all folks! Thanks to Tom Heylen, Nick Palmer, Lucy Shipley and Justin Floyd for contributions to today’s edition, and a big thank you to all of you who have signed up as Escape Collective members. If you haven’t, there is no time like the present. To smooth the process just click this link here and hit the Join Today button in the top right of the page.
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Spin Cycle
Enter your email address to get our unique spin on news from the world of cycling delivered directly to your inbox!
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